Beyond Between
by Gabion
Summary: Dragonriders of Pern is the trademark of Anne McCaffery.  The plot and characters of this story are my own.  What lies beyond that darkness?  How far can a dragon and its rider travel in three breaths?
1. Chapter 1

Black, Blacker, Blackest

Far, Farther, Farthest.

Where is it you go,

Where is it you fly?

Breathe deep, breathe three,

And then come back to me.

Beyond the black, beyond the breath

What lies unknown at the edge of death?

Breathe deep, breathe three,

And then come back to me.

Black, Blacker, Blackest

Far, Farther, Farthest.

1

Fortran the Seeker felt the disturbance of the air before he heard the _whup_ of an incoming object, and he danced exultantly on the sandy soil, leaving pointed prints where his claws dug in.

"On land! Our luck, boys!"

The three creatures rootling in the dirt looked around and made their high-toned hunting call, and pointed their dirty snouts towards the place where for an instant they could see into a darkness so complete it did not have any comparison on this water-besieged world.

A huge creature popped into existence bringing with it a blast of the coldest air possible. Its green hide was mottled with other colours in the sunlight, and then it was dropping down towards the small island. Fortran stood his ground once he had judged the angles, and the creature came to rest on the hard packed sand, shaking its head in bewilderment.

"A live one - is it alive, boys? Yes? And - by all that's marvellous - is that someone on it? Oh, our luck, boys, our luck!"

The green creature had landed with all four legs splayed out, its massive head dropping to the sand, the spade-shaped end of its tail flattening several bushes. On its back, held on by some sort of harness, someone fell forward over its neck.

Fortran ran towards the creature and paused to survey the damage to its hide. These creatures called _dragons _by their _riders_ were either damaged or aged when they came through. Sometimes they came through and died in the instant of reaching Fortran's world, sometimes they lingered, with or without their rider. This dragon had scorch marks across the left shoulder, down the rider's leg, and on into the wing.

"Careless," Fortran murmured, shaking his head, and reaching for his back pack of rations, fresh drinking water, and the distilled _bezel_ juice that brought relief from pain when applied neat, and happy forgetfulness when drunk in a measured quantity of water or fruit juice. Reaching the dragon, Fortran quickly applied the salve down the long score mark, and began disentangling the rider from his harness. This was a big man, he thought, as he undid the buckles, and slid him down the dragon's shoulder, onto the ground, and applied the salve through the scorched edges of his clothing.

Standing up, he glanced at the dragon's head as it moved, and saw himself for an instant, reflected, his long thin face and arms, the sparkling carapace of an adult male, and his foreshortened lower limbs that had made him leave his Homebase and wander. He turned away from the sight and then skipped out of the way as the dragon gave a coughing groan and regurgitated the stinking ash they carried in their bellies. There was a lot of it, and Fortran was smiling again as he surveyed it, because when sold as fertiliser it would fetch as good a price as the harness and clothing of the rider after he died.

Except, Fortran thought in frustration, this one did not look as if he was going to die. He was rousing, groaning, clutching at the sand as he opened his eyes, blinking around.

"W - where - did I - fall - where is this?"

"What d'you remember?"

"Hurting. Cold. Falling. Where is this?"

"This is Ourworld. That's what we call it. You've fallen through a hole in space from wherever you were - can you remember where it was?"

The man shook his head slowly. "Can't - remember - do you come from there? I can understand you?"

"Over the years we've taught ourselves Yourspeech. That's what we call it to distinguish it from Ourspeech. No one ever remembers more than bits and snatches of where they came from, or even their names, usually."

"I can't remember either."

One of the snout-hounds yipped and snorted, pointing its snout and Fortran reached and turned a metal locket on the rider's neck.

"Bitra," he read. "Is that what you're called?"

"I don't remember. Perhaps. What's that?"

He pointed a wavering hand and Fortran sighed and shook his head.

"Nor either they don't remember they came through on a dragon," he said aloud to the sky. "That's your dragon. He's green. You're a green rider. We know that much. You were fighting Thread - that's what hurt you - your dragon took you into the void, only he didn't get back - he came here instead."

The man reached up and undid his helmet and took it off, and wiped a hand over his sweaty face.

"It's hot."

"Yes. Good harvesting at the end of the growing season. You're lucky you didn't come down in the ocean, you'd have drowned then."

The man raised himself onto an elbow and looked around the small island, the long sandy beach, the green growths beginning at the high tide mark and rising to a group of trees inland. Something brightly coloured flew into and out of sight, calling, and the man sat up and began undoing his heavy jacket and fur lined trousers.

Fortran went to find some leaves and stems, and wove a basket to contain the cooling ash. The dragon looked barely alive, its huge eyes closed, but it was a fine beast, and would revive soon enough. Humming softly, Fortran scooped the ash into the basket and fastened it, the snout-hounds snuffling and hunting through the undergrowth. Fortran continued with his tasks, harvesting the crops he had planted a year ago, trotting to and from his boat to load the baskets under the prow in waterproofed containers.

He paused to look at the two creatures often, but they lay without stirring, the man lying in the shadow of the dragon, until the sun began to set, and a cool breeze kicked up. Fortran came back over the trampled ground and touched Bitra gently, unprepared to have him heave off the ground and grab him, nearly breaking his arm. Fortran's high pitched yell of alarm brought the snout-hounds and they began yipping and yapping, and the dragon slowly raised its head, and nudged at Bitra, as if trying to communicate, and the rider let go, and sat back.

"Sorry! I wasn't expecting that - I was - I wasn't asleep - I was - somewhere - it was so dark and cold - someone was trying to speak to me but I couldn't understand."

Fortran nodded as he rubbed his arm.

"We know about that, over the years your people have been coming through. You've lost the ability to speak to your dragon, an ability you once had. Both of you've forgotten where you come from, or what you did back there."

"Do you know?"

Fortran shrugged.

"I know what the stories tell, but do I know if they're the truth?"

"The truth is a slippery customer," Bitra agreed. "Where're you going now? Where d'you live?"

"Out on the ocean, mostly. I've a few islands I cultivate - no one else comes this way any more, they prefer it on the larger lands."

"What am I going to do?"

Fortran studied him.

"Well - if you and your dragon had died, I'd know what to do with you, I can tell you! Your clothing, his hide, his bones, they'd fetch a tidy price at the market. But you're alive, and I never did learn how to kill anything."

Bitra was watching him as carefully, Fortran realised, and wondered if he was being too confident. On the rare occasions he listened to the wilder tales, they said these riders could fight to the death with bare hands or weapons.

"Are there others of our sort? Will you take us there?" Bitra asked.

Fortran glanced at the angle of the sun.

"Not in the night time. Boys! Are there clawed-beasts?"

The three snout-hounds searched back and forth as Bitra stood up, and Fortran gave back a pace, because he was so tall and bulky. The dragon also raised itself, and nudged Bitra again, who reached and scratched his eye ridges as the three snout-hounds came back.

"This island should be clear - I grow crops here every year, but you can never tell if you've taken out all the beasties. We can sleep here safely, then you - I can take you on the boat, but your dragon will have to fly - how strong is that wing?"

The dragon raised his wing, flexed it, sweeping it over the ground, raising eddies of sparkling sand in the slanting sunlight, and then took off over them, circled, and landed again.

"All right," Fortran gasped, wiping sand from his face and arms. "Help me set up the tent."

They went down to the beach and brought back the smooth supple tent, and Bitra ran a hand over it.

"Dragon hide?"

"Yes. I told you your sort is bounty to us."

Bitra stared over the darkening ocean. "Is it all like this? Oceanic?"

"That's a new word for me. Water - the world is made of water, with only pieces of land here and there, a long chain of them through the centre of the world, and these patches of outlying islands."

Bitra bent and scooped up sand and let it trickle through his fingers, shaking out a piece of rock.

"And this?"

"That was once under the sea. In grandfather's grandfather's day there was less land, and it was much hotter. There's plants growing now, big ones, that only used to be small back then."

Bitra stood staring at the piece of rock, turning it over in his hand, frowning at it.

"Ice," he said slowly. "Ice does that. I - seem to remember - someone talking about ice."

Fortran shrugged. "I don't know that word either, but I know my small islands are enough to give me a decent harvest and some surplus to sell in the markets."

He lit a fire and they spent some time dragging fuel to it, and then ate some dried meat and fruits from the gathered harvest, but Bitra was asleep long before Fortran who stayed awake with the snout-hounds huddled companionably around him, gazing up at the star-strewn sky, wondering yet again where the dragons and their riders came from.


	2. Chapter 2

2

The next day the oddly assorted couple made ready to set out in the boat.

"How far is it?" Bitra asked.

"I don't live on this boat all the time, it's about an hour's sail to the next island, my main base, where the _balonraft_ is moored."

Fortran led Bitra down to the beach, and showed him how to step the mast, how to sway the sail up to the top of the mast.

"You're good," he said in pleased surprise.

"I - I seem to know how to do this. But - another part of me - knows it wasn't what I was taught as a boy."

Fortran nodded. "Memories are imperfect, after passing through the void. Come on board, boys!"

The snout-hounds hustled up the gangplank and into the boat, settling themselves like ballast against the white ribs holding the seats, and Bitra ran a hand over the white ribs and seats.

"Is this - bone?"

"Dragon bone," Fortran agreed. "What else should we use? Wood's far too valuable, and there's enough and to spare of dragon bone."

"Do many of us come through?" Bitra asked as he helped set the sail, watching the dragon flapping overhead.

"Some few. In fits and starts. Sometimes it's a lot - and a lot of younger, smaller, damaged ones - other times it's just old ones. But they're all as big or bigger than your dragon."

"Bigger - something in my mind about the biggest - no - I can't remember."

"Don't fret at it. From what I've understood, most of them can't remember anything ever."

"Do many of them live on, somewhere on this world?"

Fortran shook his head. "I've only ever seen five dragons alive in my life, but I see their riders at market. I don't go to the lands where they mostly settle - some islands my ancestors gave them to live on."

Fortran adjusted the sail and the boat began moving, and Bitra was sickly green after a few moments. The dragon dipped down almost to the surface of the sea, its eyes turning a yellowish colour.

"He'll be fine," Fortran said soothingly. "It's just it isn't what he's used to, you see? You're managing nicely! Good balance!"

The dragon studied him, and Fortran was pleased to see those huge eyes return to the hue they had been before as the dragon rose a little and kept pace with them.

"We'll raise land in a few hours," Fortran told the dragon. "This one's a bigger island, and we have to be a bit more careful, I haven't managed to get rid of all the clawed things, but there's a good stoup of fresh water - we can fill the water bags again. Then it's on around the chain to gather the harvest."

The dragon was looking out over the water, up into the sky occasionally, at the blueness reflected in the ever-moving ocean.

"Where's your home?" Bitra asked croakily, clearing his throat of vomit and sipping the ration of water Fortran gave him.

"Oh - my Homebase? Way down into the middle ocean. I left there a long time ago."

"Did they mind?"

"I don't know. I rarely touch Homebase any more, I sell my harvest at the outlying markets."

"But you'll go there this time, to deliver us to wherever the others are?"

Fortran hesitated, and then nodded.

"I suppose I'll have to, yes. I'll do my round of harvest first, if you don't mind? It's my security against the next year."

Bitra nodded. "We all have to get the harvest in, even if we're hunting Thread."

He broke off and looked surprised. "Now where did that come from? I just remembered - in the fields - and the woods - berries and fruit."

The dragon gave a small sound, like a very far and faint seashell horn, Fortran thought.

"It remembers too! Do dragons harvest?"

Bitra shook his head in frustration. "I can't remember! That bit came and now it's all gone again."

Fortran put a hand on his arm. "Don't fret at it," he advised. "Leave it be, and maybe a bit more will come - we'll write that down, though, because it might be it'll jog some other memories from others of your kind."

"Thanks."

They fell silent then, rocking with the motion of the craft, and when he glanced over, Fortran saw Bitra was asleep. The sun was beating down, and Fortran rigged a shelter over the big man, because that was one of the things he knew about these people, that the sunshine could damage their skin, uncovered as it was, without the protection of the carapaces of his own folk.

They reached the next island and Fortran guided the boat to a cove and the harbour he had made over the years. He had smoothed the rockfaces and kept them clean, and built a jetty out into the deeper water at the wider end of the island, which was shaped like a shoe, with reefs around the long sides, calm lagoons inside them and long sweeps of white beaches. At the narrower end a cone of black volcanic rock reared out of jungle. Fortran directed the dragon to land on the beach and watched in amusement as it began making a sand bath, rolling and stretching.

Bitra was awake now and helped to tie the boat to the jetty. On the other side a large raft bobbed, with a mast laid down and lashed securely.

"What's that?"

"My _balon_raft. That's what I use to get to the markets. It's made of bone and wood, with inflatable _balons _underneath. We all use _balon_rafts, big or small."

"Can't you use wood? That's partly wood?"

"Yes. This island is my main base, I keep my stores here, and grow trees I bring as seedlings from other places, but trees are uncommon."

Bitra looked around the island.

"It's a good size," he admitted. "About three klicks, I suppose, by about two?"

"Those are your measurements," Fortran agreed. "I found this one first, from the old maps and charts, and made my own harvest group. Like I say, no one comes out here now, they're all concentrated on the middle islands."

"And those shallows around it? The rocks protect the land?"

"Yes, the reefs hold off the waves, except on the highest tides and in the worst of the wet season storms."

They walked up the beach into the shade of a building. The frame was of white bone struts, with woven reed matting between, and a sturdy roof of dragon hide.

"How many of us did you say came through?" Bitra asked.

"I didn't. But in the last three wet seasons, I've lost two drowned and gone down too quickly to haul up, and one come through dead. That one was an aged one, but I used it, bone and hide and sinew."

He glanced at Bitra but the dragon rider just sighed and shook his head.

"I can't remember what's special about them, or us, to give you reason why you shouldn't harvest such things. This world must be difficult enough to live on, without abandoning the bounty that falls out of the skies!"

"I'm glad you see it that way. I think - the other dragon riders aren't so understanding."

Bitra shrugged. "Like I say, I'm not in a position to make a judgement on you. So - you personally see one every Turn?"

"That's your term for a year's turn of the world around the sun, yes? There's two seasons here, wet and dry. We're coming into the end of the dry now. Hand me those sacks, will you?"

Fortran had been working, and had uncovered several deep pits lined with pottery jars and now placed the sacks of unwinnowed grain in them and re-sealed the lids. He spread the dragon ash over the hot rocks to dry further, and handed Bitra the last water bottle.

"Here, you can finish this, we'll refill here."

Bitra looked around. "From here? There's drinking water?"

"I'll show you."

The dragon had been sitting up, grooming, and now let out a warble, pointing its snout out to sea. The snout-hounds yipped in answer and ran down to the sea's edge.

"What?" Bitra asked.

"The creature's long sighted?"

"Yes of course, to be able to see Thread coming," Bitra replied automatically. "What's out there to be seen?"

Fortran ran to the nearest tree and began climbing, extending claws to do it, and Bitra came down to the dragon's side.

"What is it you see? Is there danger, d'you think? How can we tell, in this weird world, eh? Wherever it is, we can be certain sure we won't be going home from it!"

Fortran came scrambling down and joined him.

"It's a _balonraft_ like mine, and there're several people on it - but there's no sail up."

Bitra shaded his eyes.

"Is it coming here?"

"It seems to be drifting."

"But you aren't sure?"

"There are pirates in these waters," Fortran said in a worried voice. "I've not encountered many, but I don't want anyone to know about this island. It'd be a prize, y'see, they'd rob me and take everything to market and sell it themselves."

"They'd kill you, you mean?"

"Well - yes - I suppose they would."

The dragon had been watching and now leaped up off the ground, showering them with grit and sand. The snout-hounds were growling, low and fierce, and Bitra turned to Fortran.

"D'you have any weapons? Sword? Bow and arrow? Anything?"

Fortran shook his head, not meeting his look.

"I - I don't do violence. I couldn't fight as a child, my legs were damaged, and then I took off from my Homebase - I've always managed to sail out of trouble."

The dragon was circling the raft, the downdraught of its wings making the sea choppy, uneven waves running under the loosely woven surface, and they could see activity as men rose from where they had been lying, grabbed things, and tried to fend off the dragon.

"I think that tells you something," Bitra said grimly, and began hunting along the edge of the sand for a weapon.

"He'll tip them off!" Fortran shouted.

"She - a green dragon is a female," Bitra retorted. "Will it matter?"

"There's eaty things out there."

"Then they'll raise their sail and sheer off, won't they?"

Bitra had found a long piece of wood and was holding it like a weapon, and Fortran reluctantly drew his long knife.

"That's a good blade - stone?"

"Black stone from the dead cores of the fire islands," Fortran said, holding the knife in both hands, staring out to sea. The dragon had risen to a greater height, to avoid arrows being fired from the raft, and circled around it, driving it further away. Then she broke off the contest and began winging her way back to the island. Bitra shaded his eyes again.

"They're in trouble," he said. "The raft's breaking up - what sort of eaty things are out there?"

"Big ones, with big teeth," Fortran said with a shudder.

"Yes, I think they've found the raft." He watched the other race for the jetty, and followed at a pounding run.

"Hey! What're you doing?"

"We have to rescue them! We can't let them be snatched and eaten! What sort of monster do you think I am?"

Bitra put a hand on his arm.

"Fortran - I don't think you're a monster, but I do think you'd be mad to go out there. Look - they've raised the sail - they'll be safe."

The green dragon had circled around, come back to the wallow in the sand, and the snout-hounds were huffling busily around it, almost as if they were exchanging views on the encounter.

"They won't be back in a hurry," Bitra said as Fortran hesitated, the mooring rope in his hands. "They need to mend the raft first, and if they think a wild dragon is on the island, they'll be careful, won't they?"

"Yes. Not even pirates will try to take down a dragon." Fortran examined the rope in his hands and tied it to the bollard again. "Are you sure they'll be all right?"

"Well no, I'm not sure, of course I'm not, but so long as they don't come here and discover you, that'll be good, won't it? What about your other islands?"

"They're all in the other direction. I suppose - they might be making for a pirate base - I've heard they have huge collections of _balon_rafts floating out on the water. I need to thank your dragon - are you sure you can't remember his - her - name?"

"No, I can't remember. You give her a name."

Fortran glanced up at him as they trod over the hot sand.

"I'll call her Wavehover," he said as they came to the dragon and rubbed her eye ridges, examining her for any arrow damage.

"We need to get water, and start a fire, and cook," Fortran said at last. "I'll bait some hooks and see if I can get some fish for Wavehover to eat. I'll show you the water supply."

"Fine by me," Bitra said. "Oh, and we need some oil of some sort, to stop Wavehover's skin cracking."

"I can make that. We have to use oil when we're youngsters, whilst we're still growing."

"I could use some myself, my skin feels rough already, sea and sand and salt water don't do it any good."

"That's something we always have to hand, and I always sell a good amount at market."

"I think I'm looking forward to this market of yours."

"Yes, it's a grand sight. Come on then, let's get the water."


	3. Chapter 3

3

They stayed for several days on the large island. After staggering along the soft beach sand with a yoke of containers, Bitra made a sled of bones and woven matting and Wavehover pulled the skin water containers to and from the reservoir. The rain water collected deep within the dead volcanic chimney during the wet season, and spilled from a crack in the side. Bitra found a dead sea creature and set the upturned carapace to make a pool, deepened the run off and made piping to ease the collection. Working on it gave his mind time to focus on something other than the worry and confusion of who he was and where he had lived and worked before coming here through the void. If he had any insights he wrote them down on scraped leaves with ink made from a sea creature Fortran caught and cooked.

Wavehover healed rapidly and patrolled every day, but the pirates did not return. The hot sand made an ideal wallow, and the fish and plant oil kept her hide supple and uncracked. The snout-hounds generally followed her to the sand, and they would come loping back with clawed beasts they had found for her to eat. She also learned to fish for herself in the deeper water beyond the reef, bringing back a share for everyone.

Fortran worked on his harvest, drying fish and fruit to store in his hidden pots. He checked the boat and the _balonraft_ ready for the next expedition, and answered Bitra's queries about the world as best he could.

"You must have left the Homebase young," Bitra observed, as they were packing supplies into containers for the trip to the next island.

"Yes I did."

Bitra glanced across. "Sorry. I didn't mean to pry."

"It's all right. You'll see why when we come to the markets."

"You look different to them?"

"Yes. My legs are stunted from an accident."

Bitra nodded. "I see. You look all right to me, of course, because I haven't met any of your people. But I hope I'm not one to point and stare."

Fortran looked across at him. "You don't know that?"

"No, I don't know, but I can't think that losing my memory in the void would change my basic nature?"

"I suppose that's right. Who you are is still there, even if you can't remember your past life. When people lose their memories, they're still the same person."

"Hmph. Well, let's hope the other dragon riders here are the same! I suppose - they breed?"

"Have offspring? Yes, I think they do, I've heard female riders have come through alive. The dragons breed as well."

Bitra plugged the container and put it to one side. "The dragons - mate?"

"So I've been told. I've never seen it, of course, but I'm told they perpetuate their species."

"How big is this world?"

Fortran laughed. "You mean, is there enough land for everyone? Of course not, and land is usually farmed, not lived on! Most Homebases are a mixture of _balonraft_ and lots of additions of hide and bone. They all look to a particular piece of land, like I look to this land."

"Do you have to make formal claim on it?"

"I don't know," Fortran admitted. "I've never been back to ask, so I don't know."

"Maybe we'd better map it, and chart its position and then you can?"

"How will we do that?"

"Mapping it will be easy - I can take Wavehover up and draw the shapes. Charting - I think you do that by the stars. I think you line them up and mark the position of the islands."

Fortran looked doubtful, but he and Bitra spent time that night marking the positions of the stars and the next day Bitra and Wavehover went aloft to chart the island and mark the positions of the others in the chain. Fortran stood looking up at them, shading his eyes as the snout-hounds pointed to them in the sky.

"I tell you what, boys, he isn't like I'd expected," Fortran said aloud. "All those scary tales about them - I suppose he could be violent - he looks as if he could fight - but he's clever. I'd never have thought of the water collector. Nor that the birds would come there to drink and leave their dung for us to use."

The snout-hounds didn't answer, but he did not expect an answer; he often spoke aloud to them and he knew he was lonely and perhaps a little mad sometimes.

"There we are," Bitra said when they had landed and he had stripped off his flying gear. "That's about as accurate as we'll get - the sea's very shallow hereabouts - I'd guess if you had the right gear you could walk underwater between all these islands."

"The sea's shallow around all the islands. Then it can plunge off into the depths, where the eaty things live."

"The top of the reef is exposed - you could build it higher with rocks and mortar, and then drain and use the land inside."

Fortran stared at him, obviously struggling to understand his words.

"The reef - that holds the sea back, and makes the lagoon," he said at last. "The tops of the reefs show more now, as if the sea's drawing back."

"Ice," Bitra nodded. "I've obviously been used to that, it seems natural to think about it. If there's ice growing on this world, the land will increase. Soon enough, the lagoon will be completely cut off - you could help it along."

"What about the salt? I can't grow anything in salt."

"That would leach out eventually, and anyway - you'll be covering it with soil from other islands."

There was a long pause, and then Fortran shook his head.

"I'm sorry, friend Bitra, but I don't even begin to understand you."

"That's all right, friend Fortran. Just some ideas playing in my mind. Now - we need more rope, don't we?"

Pleased to be on safer topics, Fortran agreed, and they went in search of the pithy reeds they could soak, split, beat into fibres and roll into twine to be plaited into stronger ropes. Fortran had to admit Bitra's soft hands with multiple fingers could do that work better than his own three clawed hand.

"We go tomorrow," Fortran said as they were weaving the rope and coiling it. "The wet season will be upon us, and we need sell surplus for staple goods."

"What will you take to sell?"

"Food, hide, this rope, whatever I have."

"And what will you have in exchange?"

"I can buy soil," Fortran said. "I don't do that often, but I could do so. Oil and candles are always valuable."


	4. Chapter 4

4

The next day they loaded supplies of food and water into the boat and raised the sail. The end of the dry season was near, they had already seen clouds boiling up on the horizon, and the flicker of lightning. The next island would be the last harvest, and then they would get the _balonraft_ ready to sail to the markets.

They sailed over shallow seas again, and Bitra leaned out to study the rocky places beneath the hull, the swift flurry of fish, and the weeds in the deeper channels.

"All this would go, if the land increased," Fortran observed.

"Yes, but there'd be other opportunities. Life is always full of opportunities, what gets taken away is given as something different, somewhere else."

"Is that what you believe?"

"Yes, I suppose I do - look - over there - what's that dark patch?"

Fortran shaded his eyes and Wavehover came lower from where she had been soaring, pointing her muzzle, and the snout-hounds set up a huffling barking roar and pointed their muzzles.

"Nothing good, I'm thinking," Bitra said grimly. "Those pirates, returning?"

"Yes," Fortran replied, and began hauling up a second sail, spilling wind into it, and the prow dipped into the waves as they picked up speed.

"Coming from the side - they must be rowing! Can you row the rafts?"

"Yes, if you have enough people."

Bitra watched the flashes of water. "They have a lot of people. What weapons do we have?"

"None - I suppose you could use the boat hook to fend them off - they usually have bows and arrows."

"Remind me to make a bow and arrow soonest," Bitra replied as he trimmed the sail and watched Wavehover who was high enough to be out of arrow range. If she dived close to the raft, she risked being injured, and he watched in puzzlement as she peeled away and began diving amongst a crowd of sea birds.

"I can't understand what she's doing," he called to Fortran, who shook his head.

"Nothing to help, obviously. We might make it to shallow water, and they might not risk following, in case they spike and hole the _balons_."

"Do it," Bitra said, and trimmed the sails as Fortran steered towards the outer edges of the reef of the next island.

Wavehover burst out of the water and soared upwards, then swept in low over the waves, dipping her tail and a wing edge occasionally. The sea birds had risen in a screaming cloud also, and suddenly something huge broke the surface, rose up and up, almost as far as the dragon, and then crashed down into the sea again.

"Hold on!" Fortran screamed, and Bitra grabbed at the ropes along the side of the hull as an enormous wave spread outwards from where the creature had landed. It picked up the _balon_raft and tossed it about and they saw people fall from it, slipping and sliding over into the water, bobbing and swimming for the raft, but Wavehover had dived in on it, snatched it up in her talons, and was shaking it.

"Attagirl," Bitra muttered as they rolled on the edges of the enormous wave. "Look - are those eaty things?"

"Yes - we must turn - "

"I don't think we can - the wave's carrying us - mind the reefs!"

Fortran spun around and gave a shout, hauling down the second sail as Bitra concentrated on steering through the shallows, seeing the water foam white and grey over the rocky landscapes beneath them.

They came to rest in the shelter of the island at the end of the sunken reefs. There was nothing to be seen behind them, the sea was calm, the birds had gone, and Wavehover was winging towards the island, coming to land on the long curved beach. Bitra let out a long breath, shaking his head.

"Fortran - they've gone - "

"I know." He stared unhappily around the empty sea. "I don't know - whether to thank your dragon, or curse her."

"Fortran - if they'd caught us - they'd have killed us, yes? Killed the snout-hounds - or fed them to the fishes - and taken everything you've built up over the year?"

Fortran stared at him, and then around at the empty seas again.

"Yes. I understand you, friend Bitra, but - a reverence for life - we should have it - "

"We do, my friend, we do. But pirates - they prey on the helpless - and the strong should always defend themselves and others."

"You mean - they won't attack anyone else? Have we done well?"

"I think so."

They fell silent then, bringing the boat in through a gap in the reef. This was not a true lagoon, the sea washed in and out of the gap, and they beached on the sand and jumped out to drag the boat higher out of the tide, stake it with ropes, and then pause to draw breath and calm down, the snout-hounds jumping out and rushing at once to Wavehover. Bitra watched Fortran as he coiled the ropes and stowed the sails, collected his harvesting gear. He did not look at Wavehover, but headed directly up the beach towards the trees, but the dragon reached out her long neck, and laid her head in his path, so that he had to stop. Bitra found he was clutching a stick as if it were a weapon, as the two gazed at each other, then Fortran reached out and scratched Wavehover's eye ridges, stroked her face, and continued into the trees. Bitra let out a breath and came over in his turn to check over his dragon, looking for open sores or wounds, checking for flaking patches.

"That was brave of you, my heart," he said quietly. "Did you lead that thing on deliberately? I suppose you must have, and it saved us, and your friends the snout-hounds."

Wavehover huffed the sand into small eddies, her eyes whirling in pleasure, and Bitra made much of her before he continued into the trees, following Fortran, the dragon settling into a sandy wallow behind them.

"Fortran! Are you there?"

"Here," Fortran said, appearing out of a building made mostly of reed matting. "This has survived the season, and there's water here."

They refilled the water bottles they carried, and Bitra scouted the area, seeing where new young trees had been planted, probably in pits Fortran had filled with good soil and dung, or perhaps the rotted remains of fish he had caught.

"What are these trees?"

"Those? They grow nearly everywhere - you can make good matting from their leaves."

Bitra picked up the fallen dried fan like leaves, and also a large oval hard-cased object.

"And this?"

"The fruit, I suppose? I don't know - I've never bothered much with it - the skin is so hard and dry, I've never found a centre."

Bitra put it to one side and fetched a basket and skin container of water, put on his hat, rolled his shirt sleeves down against scratches and insects, and followed Fortran into the centre of the island.

Protected by the outer ring of trees, a stand of grain had ripened over the dry season, watered whenever Fortran came on his rounds, and they started cutting the grain heads and stowing them in the baskets, working up and down the rows.

"What about the stalks?" Bitra asked, when he paused at a row end and took a sip of water, rolling it around his mouth and letting it trickle down his throat. "Are they useful?"

"I leave it standing during the wet season, and it rots down into the ground."

"Good enough. Are there birds and animals here?"

"Birds, certainly, come for shelter. Clawed beasts in plenty as well, coming out of the water into the damp places to breed."

Bitra looked around involuntarily, and then bent to his task again. They cleared the field of grain and tramped wearily back to the beach hut.

"What's Wavehover doing?"

"Fishing?"

They watched as the dragon dipped to the surface, picked up something and threw it across the reef into the calmer waters.

"Not fish! Debris from the pirates' _balon_raft!" Fortran said. "You wished for bow and arrows - there might be such in the water."

The bits and pieces of wood, hide, _balons_, matting, bobbed on the surface of the lagoon.

"Don't the sea creatures eat the _balons_?" Bitra asked.

"No. They're sort of poisonous when they're fresh. Once they start being fish food, we haul them on shore and use them for other things."

"Can we fetch all that in? Is it safe to launch the boat?" Bitra asked.

"I think so."

They pushed out into the lagoon, keeping a watch for sharp rocks, and gathered up the broken remains of the raft, hauling it up beyond the high tide mark. Wavehover caught fish and brought them back, and then settled into her wallow.

"What about clawed beasts? Can they harm her hide?" Bitra asked.

"I don't know, but I doubt it. They can't puncture a hide boat, but they could be annoying to her."

They lit a fire and made a meal, exhausted from the journey, the harvesting, the emotional aftermath of the fight.

"Time enough to examine the stuff by daylight," Fortran said, and showed Bitra how to sling a hammock above the ground. Bitra had fetched the hard cased fruit and was teasing the outer layers off with a sharp edged shell. He rubbed the fibres between finger and thumb.

"That might make rope, if it was treated like the rushes," he said, and dug deeper, peeling the layers off to reveal a second hard case. He shook it, and heard liquid sloshing inside, and turned it over and over in his hands.

"I can't believe no one makes use of this!" he said crossly at last, and hammered it down onto a rock. It split in half, one half shattering and rolling in the sand, the other staying upright in his hand, and he stared down at it.

"Look at that! Liquid! Is it water? Is it safe?"

"Friend Bitra! Take care!"

Bitra dipped a finger into the liquid and licked it cautiously. The snout-hounds came over and began snuffling at the broken pieces, and then scraped at the cream coloured inner coating with their teeth, and ate it before the two could prevent it.

"Well, here goes," Bitra said, and drank the milky sap. "Sweet! Very refreshing as well - let's try the flesh."

Fortran sat staring at him in horror, and Bitra chewed some of the flesh.

"Sweet, yes, and very chewy. I wonder if you could dry this and keep it for hard times? Try some?"

Fortran reached reluctantly and took the piece offered, popped it in his mouth and chewed it slowly.

"It would be useful dried," he agreed. "And on dry islands, you could crack one for the sap?"

"I'd say so. Are they widespread?"

"Yes, they're on every island."

"And your people never use them as a food source?"

"No, not to my knowledge. We harvest some of the island fruits, and dry them, and grow grain where we can."

Bitra stared off into the sunset, absently scraping out the half case, putting the flesh to one side. He held up the case.

"A container, yes? Your people are strangers to this world, Fortran, as I am."

"Strangers? We have lived here since before - before - well - before everything, I suppose."

Bitra shook his head. "I don't know anything of my past life, but I do know some things about myself, about my dragon, about finding and harvesting food, about sailing. There's no reason you wouldn't have known of this fruit, unless you arrived not knowing of it. As you don't know the true name of the eaty things, nor anything else. You've used names for some things, but not others. You've ignored some plants that might be food, and this one which is food. What are your creation myths?"

"Our - what? Friend Bitra, I often have trouble understanding you."

"A creation myth is the story you have amongst your people, of how you came to be."

"Yes, we have tales of that. Because the red light was strong and hurting, when our people walked upright they grew the shields on their backs, and because the rock was hard, they grew the claws on their hands and feet to climb and forage."

"Red light? What red light? The sun here is yellow!"

Fortran squinted into the sky. "Yes, I know. I don't know why we call it a red light."

"What happened next?"

"Our people were born by fire and heat out of the wave and the surf," Fortran said slowly. "They came from the depths into the light, and found the land. They made the rafts out of the _balon _they found, which was like the _balon_ of their home-before-the-waves. All else - is told by the story-tellers of each Homebase, the story of each being different."

"After they split up from the original landing."

Fortran stared at Bitra. "How strange. I never thought of it as strange before - it's taught as being the truth. I always thought the fire and heat must be one of the fiery islands, and the waves and the surf of course is the sea on the beaches of the islands. But where was our home-before-the-waves?"

"A good question, and one you might like to ask when we reach these markets of yours. In the meantime - a good night's sleep and then back to the main island before the storms, yes?"

Fortran settled himself more comfortably in the hammock.

"Good night, and I hope you suffer no more than a pain in the guts from that fruit you ate!"

Bitra laughed at that and settled himself under the woven sleeping mat for sleep.


	5. Chapter 5

5

Fortran woke the next day to find Bitra already up, with a collection of the strange fruits stripped of their covers. He was shredding the fibres into bundles and tying them.

"What're you doing?"

"I'm going to work on this stuff to make rope and matting. I think it must be like linen - " he plucked at his shirt. "This is linen, and I remember how to work it."

"Your deep memories remain?"

"Yes. Or perhaps - I didn't come through the void in the same way - I'd have to wait to ask the others of my kind about that."

He stood up and came over to the fire, and offered Fortran breakfast, cooked flesh of clawed beasts and some of the local fruits.

"The snout-hounds were eating those, so I cooked some as well."

They ate their meal, and began gathering their belongings, stowing the harvested food, the bundles of bone and wood from the shattered raft, refilling the waterskins, and then Fortran called the snout-hounds, and they pushed the boat out onto the high tide and poled it out of the bay into deeper water, setting the sail, and Fortran took the tiller.

Bitra did not talk or speculate on the trip back to the main island. He watched Wavehover flying strongly overhead, he watched the clouds on the horizon, and the spats of wind across the surface of the water, and was ready to trim and furl the sails as necessary, and bail what little water slopped over the sides when they heeled into the wind.

They reached the main island and tied up at the jetty, looking around for any sign that the pirates had visited here first, but there were no footprints or signs of destruction.

"We need to get the _balonraft_ ready," Fortran said.

"Tell me what you want me to do."

They stepped aboard the raft, six paces long on each side, with a curved prow and stern pointing up out of the water, and Fortran shook his head as the floor undulated and shipped water.

"Not enough inflation. We'll have to blow up some more _balons_."

Fortran hauled up grey slimy tubes that dangled under the bone ribs of the raft, some of them only half inflated, and he fetched a tube and funnel. He gave a gasp as Wavehover dropped into the shallower side of the bay. The snout-hounds pointed their muzzles at Wavehover and at the tube, and Fortran held it out. Wavehover blew out a long slow breath and inflated them for him, watching with what Fortran thought was interest.

"Thanks for that! That's a long breath of air - useful to know about that."

"I think she's communicating with the snout-hounds," Bitra said. "I felt that pressure, and the darkness, in my mind, just then, but I couldn't make out any speech at all."

"There're tales that dragons speak to their riders, in the mind," Fortran said. "Some few must come through with a little knowledge, I suppose?"

"I've written down what I can remember, to take to them," Bitra said.

"We'll do that, then, once we've sold our goods at the market."

"Our goods? Wait a minute, Fortran, this is your harvest!"

"And you have not helped me to gather it in? You have not been bitten and stung by the creatures glad to be able to suck blood?"

Bitra looked ruefully at his arms. "Yes, well, at least they were well fed!"

"We'll find something to protect you at market, no doubt."

The cabin on the _balon_raft was the boat, inverted and held in place over a framework of bone and wood, with the harvest carefully stowed and balanced. Bitra stepped the great mast and threaded the lines for the square sail.

"What about Wavehover?" Fortran asked. "At first there'll be islands for her to rest, but then there's a longer stretch of water?"

Bitra shrugged. "If she can't make it, I'll stop with her on the last island and await your return."

Fortran did not mention it again as he completed the preparations on the island, folding the hut sides down and covering them with large stones, filling in the latrine area they had used, checking the jetty was secure. He shooed the snout-hounds on board and they settled by the mast, and the two of them hauled up the sail and the _balon_raftbegan to move, guided by the large rudder which Bitra was sure was the shoulder bone either of a dragon or a very large sea creature.

"Wear your hat and cover your arms," Fortran advised. "The light can burn out at sea as well as on land. Do you have enough oil for yourself and Wavehover?"

"Yes, there's that whole pot of vegetable oil, and I'm going to try the big fruit as well."

"And we can eat that fruit? I worry about why I didn't know about it - there're plenty of trees on the farming places of the Homebase."

"You said you sell those red berries we dried in the sun? They don't grow at your home?"

"No, it's too warm for them - they need the cooler wet season to flourish."

"So it's going to get hotter?"

"Much hotter," Fortran said with a smile. "And wetter - there's a storm coming our way, but it should only be a small one at the beginning of the season."

"There're islands on the way?"

"This chain of islands curves down towards the markets, and we follow them down, so we can refill the water skins before going out on the open seas."

Bitra wondered if there was a map of the lands Fortran's people occupied. He knew there must only be islands and isolated sea mounts, but surely they had sailed from one to the other and plotted them, knew the routes between them?

If they had come from another world, and were not a sea going people, he could understand this lack of knowledge. Fortran did not look as if he could swim, and rarely went into the lagoons, although Bitra had been in to scrub Wavehover with the fine white sand and wash her down.

Perhaps there were other larger islands not used by Fortran's people, not claimed by a Homebase, apart from the islands they had given to the dragon folk.

"Is there farming land on the islands where the dragons live?" he asked later.

"I don't know. There must be something to sustain life, but I've never been to those islands - they're very difficult to access - the dragons can fly in and out with ease, of course, but for _balonrafts_ and boats it's more difficult because of rocks below the surface and sheer cliff faces - they're part of the fire islands ranges."

They ate cold food on the raft, and slept on reed matting under the shelter of the upturned hull of the boat, with more matting to make sides to keep out the cool night wind, taking turns to keep watch, to Fortran's astonishment.

"What would you do on your own? Stay awake day and night?" Bitra asked crossly. "Get some sleep, I'll wake you in good time."

He woke him halfway through the night, the moon riding clear in the sky.

"The storm moved across us, although the wind picked up. We're still on course by the stars, but you'd better check."

Fortran nodded and went to the sweep rudder, and Bitra crawled into his bedding and laid his furred jacket over himself because the night wind had been cold. He wondered where Wavehover was, and decided she had come down on an island ahead of them. By the end of the day they could see the dark smudge of an island and steered for it, coming around the reef and seeing Wavehover comfortably asleep on the sands inside.

"This one has no water," Fortran commented. "Good fishing, though, we could put out some lines."

They baited the lines and fished for an hour, gutting and splitting the fish and laying the fillets to dry on the hull of the boat, covered with fine weed Fortran pulled from the_ balons_ beneath them.

"How far to the next?"

"A few hours only, and we can moor here overnight."

Fortran had been carefully parcelling up the fish guts in leaves with a stone bound inside the bundle and instead of throwing them into the deeper water, hurled the bundle inside the reef where it bobbed and then sank.

"Don't want anything to think of our fishing as a free meal?" Bitra asked.

"It pays to be cautious. You can go ashore to check Wavehover? Take some oil for her hide?"

"Thanks, I will."

He stepped cautiously onto the reef and swam across the lagoon with the oil, and came up onto the sands as Wavehover raised her head and gave her low warbling bugle of welcome.

"Yes, and I'm glad to see you too, my dear. You didn't take too much out of yourself on that flight?"

He moved around her, inspecting the joints under her wings, oiling a few patches, deducing from her fishy breath she had eaten that day.

"I wonder if we can find red meat?" he said aloud. "If I'm tired of fish, I'm sure you are as well!"

He walked up into the treeline, seeing no signs of water, but the leaf mould was deep and would probably soak up water in the wet season and release it slowly. The familiar big fruits were here, and some virulently coloured red and yellow flowers, but he avoided those vines, wondering if that was also some deep seated knowledge of danger. The highest point of the island was only a few feet up from the sea level, but again he found reef rock dried and broken, as if the sea had been higher.

"Ice," he murmured. "Ice forms in the far far north, not in these hot places."

He shook his head at that memory, but stored it away in case he ever found a map of the world giving the positions of the island chains to enable him and Wavehover to island hop to the far north and see if he was right.

Coming back to the raft, he didn't mention that ambition to Fortran, keeping it in the back of his mind as something to do in the long years ahead of him between farming, fishing, and going to market.


	6. Chapter 6

6

They saw the smoke of many gatherings as they approached the market. Smoke smudged the air, birds flew overhead, and there was a curious oiliness on the surface of the sea.

"My people lay down oil to flatten the waves," Fortran explained. "That way it's easier for the _balon_rafts to be tied together."

"I see - those shapes? Are they the _balon_rafts? How many?"

Fortran shrugged. "It depends on the harvests from all the different islands. We did well, this was a good growing year, so there should be many people gathered."

"And do my people come?"

Fortran nodded and pointed. "Those vessels there, the long narrow ones, are those of your people. They lash them together with planks of wood to make a raft, come here and sell the wood, and then go home in single craft."

"Clever idea. Wood is precious and costly, you said."

"Yes, and they always sell whatever they have. I have no need, I replace what I cut out of the islands."

Bitra looked across at him. It was difficult to see any expression on Fortran's face because of his beaklike features and skin, but by now Bitra was beginning to pick up on signals of emotion.

"Yes, I understand that. Who comes?"

A sleek rowing boat was coming out to meet them, and Fortran hauled a flag up the mast to show he had goods to sell and exchange. The boat circled around and there was a flurry of words; Bitra was learning Fortran's language but that was too fast for him to follow and he waited as the others stared at him and questioned Fortran. There seemed to be no land in sight at all, and nowhere for Wavehover to land, the dragon had remained behind on the last island with one of the snout-hounds to guard her and warn against danger. Bitra felt her lack very much, as he knew Fortran did for his snout-hound.

"We can go in," Fortran said briefly. "Lower the sail, friend Bitra, they will tow us."

He nodded and did so, folding and lashing the sail, checking the mast, catching the rope and tying it on, checking the balance of the raft as they slid through the oiled surface.

"Will it affect the _balons_?" he asked.

"They won't be harmed, and the oil will get rid of some of the weed. There - they guide us there - see my Homebase flag?"

Bitra nodded, and watched the slim sleek boats of his own people nearby. The men were standing and bargaining, then one saw him and pointed, and they were all looking.

"How should you greet them?" Fortran asked. Bitra shrugged and turned to check the raft.

"Time enough for that, my friend, when we're secured to your Homebase - that's your plan?"

Fortran nodded. "There're questions to be asked and answered, about you, about the sea, about how many pirates there are."

"Do they come here?"

"No, not close in, but they might circle out of sight beyond the seeing of the guards, and then swoop."

They came in ever closer, and then the boat dropped the tow, and Fortran guided the raft to rest against a jetty. The Homebase was built in a star shape, Bitra saw, and many rafts were secured to it; they were perched on the point of one of the jetties, but people jumped across from the rafts on either side and secured them. One reached and gripped at Fortran, chattering to him, holding him out to examine him, then hugging him again.

Bitra realised then why Fortran trod his lonely existence; he was much shorter than his fellows, and not only deformed in the legs, but his carapace was oddly shaped. Bitra watched in silence, and then there was a bump and the snout-hounds let out a yipping warning call.

The man who stood at the prow of the boat spoke to Fortran who turned to Bitra.

"Is it your wish to speak to these your own people? I'll invite them onto the raft?"

"No, I'll go into their boat, whilst you greet your own people. Can I return to the raft?"

"Where else? I'll speak with you later."

Bitra nodded and stepped into the narrow wooden hull, adjusting himself to the rocking. The other man balanced easily as he examined him.

"You must be new come? Is your dragon alive?"

"Yes, and yes. I call myself Bitra, that's a name on a pendant around my neck."

"Bitra is one of the Holds and Weyrs of our homeland. We have a map of the names."

"And of this world? Do you have maps?"

The man stared curiously at him. "For what reason? We have our places to live, and trade with these others. I'm called Dis, of the family of Brown. We go by the colours of the dragons we were riding when we came here."

Bitra sat down and watched them row the boat back across to the others tied up. There was a brisk trade going on all around him, and the smell of food cooking, and the sharpness of fresh water in the container the man handed him.

"Here, we take this from a pure source. You look parched."

"I'm fine enough, but thanks, I will take a drink."

He took a small sip, held it in his mouth and rolled it over his tongue. The constant taste and harshness of salt melted as he swallowed and handed the container back. Dis stared curiously at him and then shrugged as he stoppered the container. Bitra held out his hand for it and examined it; a dried fruit or vegetable, he guessed.

"Do you grow these?"

"Yes, and eat the flesh of them, dry the seeds and grind them for flour. You'll find out, when we get back to our islands."

Bitra squinted up at him, and did not say anything more until they reached the boats and more men were asking him how he had come through, if he remembered anything, what colour his dragon was.

"Green! That's a female! Where is she? Dead?"

"No, not dead. Why're you excited about a green?"

"Female dragons lay eggs," Dis said impatiently. "The dragons they produce are small, and some of them don't fly well, but they can hunt."

Bitra nodded, and was introduced to the other four men. They wore clothing of skin and what he recognised as the pith of the reeds. All of them looked sunburned and fit, and he looked at their trade goods.

"Is that grain?"

"Grain from the lower slopes of our islands. We exchange it for some of the other types of grain. What d'you bring to trade?"

"Not me, my friend Fortran the Seeker has the main harvest but I have a share from helping. Grain and dried fish, dried berries, some woven matting."

"I'll be around to look at that," one of the men said. "I'm called Jad Green, and I like the matting - useful for all sorts of things."

Bitra told them how long he had been here, what he could remember, and learned no one could speak to the dragons anymore, although they all knew they had once been able to do so. Only those freshly arrived had a bond with a particular dragon, he learned, the rest of them had a share in the dragons who lived with them, a group looking to each family. They drew him a map of the homeworld but it did not remind him of anything, and he was puzzled why, when Bitra was so landlocked, he should be at home on the sea.

"Oh, we came from all different places to be dragon riders," Jad said. "It's told in the annals about that, but we don't really understand why or how it was done. You'll see, when you come to the home islands."

He left after an hour or so, taking a ride on one of the small boats that raced between the Homebases, and came back to the _balon_raft, stepping lightly on board. Glancing down into the water, he could see far down the circling shapes of fish, and looking around he realised they were drawn by the discarded detritus of so many people crowded together. Birds perched on the top of the cabin, watching him as he sat down in the shade and took a drink of milky sap mixed with water. The reflections were making his eyes throb and smart and he closed his eyes, drew his hat down and lay down on the matting, one hand caressing the rough hair of the snout-hounds left behind to guard the raft.

He could feel that strange pressure of darkness in his mind, and breathed deeply and slowly, trying to penetrate it, and felt something _other_ in his mind, a strangeness beyond the sharp thoughts of the snout-hounds. Beyond the snout-hounds' surface thoughts of food, he could detect something else, perhaps Wavehover. He called in his mind to her, and was answered by something else, by a long singing call, rising and falling in his mind like the currents of the ocean. He sat up abruptly, and lost the thread, staring wildly around. One of the snout-hounds was twitching and muttering in sleep, and he ran a hand gently over its flank and it sank into a deeper and calmer sleep.

Bitra looked around the area, but there were no dragons here, and he could sense nothing of that wild singing call. With a sigh he went into the cabin and fetched some food, and his bundles of coarse fibres to begin working them into something he could weave into rope and matting, wondering how Fortran was faring amongst his own folk.


	7. Chapter 7

7

Fortran trod carefully over the linked planks of the Homebase, concentrating on his footing, knowing he was being watched by people who knew of his childhood struggles. He ignored them as he came to the centre of the Homebase with his gifts for the hearth fire and the Mother.

He did not need to stoop even yet to enter the inner portals embellished with patterns and decorations of sea and sky, and trod forward to the hearth fire.

"Do you come in peace, Fortran the Seeker?"

"I come in peace, Mother, and I bring you gifts."

"I do not need gifts."

Her words caused a stir and a mutter to go around the watching people, and Fortran paused between one step and the next, and then came on again.

"Nevertheless, Mother, for the respect and honour I need render to you, I bring you gifts of the deep sea and the far islands."

"You do not speak of love, Fortran the Seeker."

"Love is a gift freely given, Mother, and that is not my gift."

The pause was even longer this time, but Fortran did not look away from the hearth fire, knowing the voice of the Mother was being projected into it.

"Come forward and lay your gifts in the fire."

He had brought a finely woven and decorated reed mat, grain, dried fish, and a piece of the strange new fruit. He put them on the metal plate and pushed it forward into the fire and watched it burn, the flesh of the fruit filling the place with a sweet and delicate perfume. He could hear a mutter going around the watchers as he stepped back.

"Of what knowledge does that come, Fortran the Seeker, that new thing you offer?"

"This is the gift of my friend the dragonrider Bitra. Of his own free will he has aided me, and this is his gift, new found on islands where I thought I knew all the food on offer."

"It is well done. Thank you, Fortran the Seeker, you may move freely amongst us to barter your goods."

"Thank you, Mother."

He left the inner room and blinked at the sunlight.

"Is that you, Fortran?"

"Grisson?" He turned to the voice and saw the trader stretched out as usual in the sunlight. He came over and cast a shadow across the trader's face, and Grisson waved him away.

"Pffaff! Always you must be doing that. What have you brought to trade?"

"Fish, grain, matting and rope."

"And a new thing?" Grisson sat up and then stood up, towering over Fortran who moved away so that he did not need to squint into the sun to see the trader.

"Yes, we found something new."

"We found? This is the dragonrider? He returned to your raft without his companions."

"Hmm. And you, Grisson? Are you prospering?"

"Of course."

Fortran turned aside to cross the point of the Homebase to find his own family_ balon_raft, unsurprised to have Grisson follow him. The trader needed to be the first to exploit any new source of trade, but Fortran had not brought any more with him than was needed for the gift.

"Why d'you still persist in going there?" Grisson asked. "They won't welcome you this time any more than they did in other years."

"Nevertheless."

Fortran reached the_ balon_raft, and his brothers and cousins were clearing up from the last meal, looking across at him with no real welcome. The Homebase rocked slightly and someone else moved to his shoulder.

"There must be something new in the offing, for Grisson the Trader to come paying a visit?"

"Pirest? What are you doing here? Where's your family?"

"Dead," his childhood friend said in a grim voice. "Pirates attacked the _balon_raft and it sank. They stole everything they could get out of the water, but not the people on board. I wasn't there, a few of us were out fishing, and when we realised what had happened, we made straight for the Homebase."

"I thought there were more guards here than usual."

He stepped onto the raft and made his way to the cabin where his parents were busy sorting through trading goods. His mother came over and gave him a formal welcome, but his father merely looked across and nodded.

"Did you do well this year?" his father asked.

"It was satisfactory, father, but again, the sea is retreating from the islands, and the wet season was colder."

"I've had reports of the searock dying and bleaching in the sun," his father replied, reaching for a piece of dragon hide and writing down Fortran's words. "This is an unknown thing."

"My companion, the dragonrider Bitra says it is ice."

"Ice? What is that word? One of their words?"

"I think so. He tried to explain, but I didn't understand the words, but undoubtedly the sea levels are falling, and the seas are colder in the further north."

"Did you go far?"

"I stayed near my harvest. There were pirates, a great raft full of them, who tried to attack us twice."

His father looked across at him.

"I see you whole, with trade goods, yet you are not a fighter?"

"I was never a fighter," Fortran said, trying to keep the bitterness from his voice. "This time I had help, and the pirates - died."

His father looked down at the words he had scribed, and then stood up.

"I will come ask about this thing, with your permission, mother?"

His mother nodded, and Fortran retreated, with his father following.

"Grisson. Pirest."

All four of them walked across the rafts to the small _balon_raft still moored to the point, the snout-hounds gave a snuffling whimpering welcome, and Bitra looked up from his work of weaving reeds.


	8. Chapter 8

8

"Fortran."

"Bitra. You spoke with your own people? Did they have anything to tell you?"

"No, not anything I can use to understand where I was and why I'm here. I returned to make sure of the raft."

"Thank you. This is my father Kawha, and Grisson the Trader, and Pirest who is my friend."

Bitra examined the other three, and laid aside his work, getting up to fetch water from their containers, and food. Kawha sat down and fingered the roughly twisted fibres.

"Is this also a new thing, Fortran?"

"From the same source, father, and we don't know if it can work as rope or matting as well as reeds and leaves."

Kawha nodded and glanced at the snout-hounds.

"You have lost one?"

"He stayed behind at the last of the islands with the green dragon Wavehover. We think the snout-hounds and the dragons can communicate in some way."

Bitra watched as Kawha made notes, questioning the dragonrider about his memories, about the things he was able to do.

"I haven't had contact with your people," Grisson observed. "They don't welcome people at their islands, and it's difficult to bring a raft or a boat close to those huge cliffs of stone."

"They probably like it that way," Bitra said. "They showed me a map of our homeworld, it must have come through in a dragonrider's pack, and those lands seem to be full of rocks!"

Kawha nodded, and questioned them about the harvest, and after a while Grisson left, and Pirest stood watched him leap lightly from raft to raft.

"He won't give up until he knows your new trade, Fortran."

"I'm aware. It's no secret, or soon won't be. Father, I need to lodge a claim on that chain of islands I use - I've not seen anyone else on them or near them for three sets of seasons."

"That sounds reasonable. Do you have their location? I can put in a request for you with the map makers, and I expect it to be upheld."

"Thank you. I have the chart here."

He dived into the cabin, and Kawha looked at Bitra.

"Do you seek to join your companions on their islands?"

"It would seem reasonable and prudent to go and find their islands, and see what sort of a living they make on this world."

"They do well enough with the trading. You spoke to my son about ice. What is ice?"

"Frozen water. At the far far north and south of the world, when the sun only shines for half the Turn, ice forms and keeps on forming."

"Frozen water. The sea freezes?"

"Eventually, but to start with it's the fresh water that freezes, the rain falls frozen over the land and sea. Is there land at the far north and south?"

Kawha frowned. "I don't know. I've never ventured far from these middle areas of the world, but there must be notes written down somewhere. I'm known for keeping the records, so I'll look for maps if you like?"

"I'd be grateful," Bitra said, and Fortran agreed when he came out with the carefully marked charts and star locations. Kawha looked surprised, scanning the neat notes.

"This is very well done! Accurate, as well, as far as I remember those islands - your grandfather used to go there, if I remember rightly, and brought back drawings of them. Is there one with a big cone, like a dead fire island?"

"Yes, this main one."

"And does the cone still have sustenance?"

They nodded, and Kawha nodded as well, folding the maps together and getting to his feet.

"This is a new season, Fortran, and one which I think will be important to you and your friend."

Pirest stayed on the raft, and he and Fortran spoke together, Bitra understanding some of the speech, but not the quickly spoken slang, but he was learning, he thought, and he would learn more of these people and how they ordered their world. The snout-hound had laid its long muzzle on Fortran's knee and he was stroking it absently, and Bitra reached out in his mind to try and find the pressing darkness where he thought he must be able to speak to Wavehover. Once again, beyond the light surface thoughts of the snout-hound, he heard that long singing sough of sound, echoed and re echoed, he thought, as if signalling from one to the other of whatever creature was making such a sound.


	9. Chapter 9

9

As they passed the days at the market, the trade was good, Fortran told Bitra as they gathered up their supplies and reckoned up their trade goods. Fresh water was always rationed at the markets, and Bitra longed to be able to wash properly and get the salt out of his hair and clothes. He pressed oil from the flesh of the fruits and used it on his skin, and continued with his experiments of retting the fibres and rolling them into long lengths of twine.

"You don't visit your people?" Fortran said one evening when they had eaten and were lying out on the deck trying to keep cool. "Were you invited?"

"They seem to expect I'll go with them, and take Wavehover. Green dragons are female."

"They want to breed from her?"

Bitra moved restlessly. "I suppose so. How many dragons come through alive?"

"Not many," Fortran admitted. "In my generation, and that of my father, a lot of dead dragons have come through, and I think three were alive, but he knew of only one live rider. Before my father's generation they were much fewer - only an occasional older dragon or perhaps a very young one with a young rider - those were always dead."

"So they come in cycles? As if something happens on our homeworld - sometimes there's peace and sometimes war?"

"I suppose so. You mentioned Thread? I've heard of that - it was what seared you and Wavehover."

Bitra rubbed at his leg. "That stuff you used on me healed it very well."

"_Bezel_. Yes, I learned of it from an old man who lived alone in the middle island chain."

"You must have spent a long time just wandering from island to island?"

"There're a lot of islands in this chain, some of them large enough to settle on and grow crops every season. Then further to the south, the rocky outcrops where your people live, and the fire islands are, and my chain to the north."

"And the pirates? Do they have a base, or just wander on the rafts?"

Fortran stared up into the starry sky.

"People always assume they wander the seas, but the _balons_ must perish eventually, and be replaced, and for that you need land to support the crop."

"Unless they come to trade for it. Those were _balons_ being traded today? How could you tell if the person buying them was a pirate?"

"Well - I suppose you couldn't tell," Fortran admitted. "I think of pirates as being those who turned renegade, or were turned off their Homebases, and they could fit in, knowing the customs of the market."

"It might be worth asking the question. Your friend Pirest lost all his family, and you were very nearly taken as well. Do they grow bolder, or do they come and go in cycles?"

"Truth to tell, I never wondered before. You've been good for me, friend Bitra, you've woken me to questions again. I think - perhaps - I was a little mad from loneliness before you came."

"More than likely. We haven't heard back from your father about the claims, or a map?"

"He isn't one to work quickly, but he's very thorough."

"I wasn't criticising him. Your homeraft is well run, it's always the neatest and cleanest, and there's never anything lying about on it - no food to attract scavengers."

"Have you had any more success in touching minds with Wavehover?"

"No, but I've learned more about the singing I can hear. I think it must come from those great grey beasts we saw two days ago, that herd passing by."

"Those? I steer clear of them when I see them, a swipe by one of them would wreck the raft or the boat. I don't see many of them so far north, although - there was that thing chasing Wavehover - I had thought it an eaty-thing but now I'm not so sure - if you can hear them sing, can she hear them also?"

"You mean - did she call it deliberately to smash the raft? That's - rather a chilling thought."

"And one I think we must ask her. We'll be only a few more days, then we can go. What about your people?"

"I don't know, I haven't made a decision yet," Bitra admitted. "I suppose - I'm making the excuse I need to see more of this world before I commit myself to them and their rocky islands. I don't think they use dragons as they were used on our homeworld. If they can't talk to them, I suspect they use them more as beasts of burden."

"Yes, I think so also. We will find out one day, friend Bitra."

Bitra yawned and rubbed at an insect bite, and rolled his matting more comfortably, and heard Fortran settling also. He would be glad to get away from this great concourse of people, Bitra realised, because he was beginning to suspect that like Fortran, he was a person who needed aloneness to be whole.


	10. Chapter 10

10

Kawha brought the maps and confirmation of Fortran's claim, and also more maps of the islands.

"You see here - these are the main islands for growing crops? These are the largest we know of, and linked now by rafts and bridges."

"If the sea retreats, these will all join together, and there'll be a lot more land."

"Ice - the corollary of ice is cold weather?"

"Yes. In the centre here it'll still be warm, but north and south will be colder."

"Your island chain will change then," Kawha pointed out. "But not in your lifetime, nor for generations to come."

Bitra wondered about that, but did not argue the point as they rolled up the maps and made their final purchases, and stacked them carefully to preserve the balance of the raft. One of the snout-hounds had been paying court to a female, but Fortran went to collect him and came back with some worked hide.

"Look at this - this isn't dragon hide," he said to Bitra when they were in the cabin. "This is the same as your flying gear - it must have come from a dead rider's clothing."

Bitra fingered it, running his finger along the reworked seams.

"So - did they find him dead - or kill him?"

"Uncomfortable to think of either way. I've marked their raft and them, in my mind. I didn't tell them where we sail to, and I don't think my father would have done so either."

"They might follow us?"

Fortran glanced at him and shrugged as they lashed the water containers safely. "They might do so. Two alone, with goods from the market. Who can tell? What did you barter for?"

"This good straight wood for arrows. There were two bows in that detritus from the pirate raft, and I intend to learn how to use them."

Fortran was looking over his shoulder and now nudged him.

"Your friends come," he said quietly. Bitra twisted around and saw the five dragon riders paddling their canoes towards the raft.

They halted just beyond the reach of a tossed rope, and held the canoes steady. Bitra examined them carefully, seeing hollowed out logs of trees that must have been immense when in the ground. He could see the places where planks of wood were laid to make a raft to come to market, and understood why the canoes were piled high with traded goods.

Fortran had sold all the matting they had made, and a tied roll of it, with his distinctive woven patterns, was in one of the canoes.

"Hola, Bitra, dragon rider," the leader, Dis, said. "Are you coming with us now?"

Bitra finished tying the rope and then stood up and moved to the edge of the raft so that they had to look up at him.

"I had not thought to come," he said slowly. "I know you're my people, but I don't know what your way of life is, anymore."

"The same as yours," Dis said impatiently. "We farm, we harvest, we make things, we bring them to sell."

"You ride the dragons?"

"Ride them? If you come through with your dragon, you can ride, yes. Most of the rest of us don't."

"What use are they then?"

Jad leaned across from his canoe.

"They help with fishing, and clearing the ground. They breed, obviously, but always smaller than before, not bigger as we think they must have done at home."

"At home. This is your home. Or do you dream of returning through the void?"

Jad moved his paddle nervously, and glanced at Dis.

"No," he admitted at last. "We can never return to that past. With the aid of our few memories, and some maps, and some things brought through, we can piece together a little of what the life was like. But it's gone, and we're here."

"You must breed amongst yourselves," Ricard said suddenly. "Are there female dragon riders?"

"They come through, but infrequently," Jad said.

"Shut up," Dis snapped. "It's not something anyone needs to know about."

"Fortran and his people have been gathering up dead dragons and riders since they started coming through," Jad said, a note of contempt in his voice. "There's no secret about it, Dis Brown. Your friend Fortran found you, Bitra, and rescued you, and there're stories of other dragon riders rescued and nursed back to health. My clan name is Green, and I'd be pleased to have you, and your friend if he wants, come to the islands."

The other three riders had been watching, and now another spoke up.

"Gar Green, I'm called, and I'd like to learn the way of weaving yon matting, if your friend would teach it me? I'm thinking we don't have the right way of it, it's always too loose. If he'd come, and stay over the wet season, perhaps, we'd have some things to trade for the knowledge."

Bitra looked down at them.

"We'll speak of it, Fortran and I," he said briefly. "I'll be in touch."

"Don't be too long," Jad said. "We don't want to be storm-bound on the waters."

"I'll give you a decision soon."

He stepped back and watched them back off, gather in a cluster, and he thought they were arguing.

"What sort of goods would that be?" someone asked, and Grisson the trader was on the other side of the raft, his own piled high. "What would they trade for a simple thing like weaving a mat?"

"Who can tell?" Fortran replied. "But I've my own crops to plant, my own islands to guard and nurture. Friend Bitra?"

Bitra glanced at Grisson and shook his head, stepping back from the edge.

"We'll talk it through, like I said."

Fortran looked across at Grisson.

"If there's trade, then I'll return here next year with it," he said, and the trader nodded.

"I'll be waiting for it, Fortran the Seeker. Always and always, they told you the world is as it is, and you'd come scuttling over the rafts and ask me - why is it so? Maybe you'll find out sooner than I will!"

Fortran nodded, and watched the trader going, his sails filling with the breeze. Petris was on the raft with him, and waved.

"In time, friend Fortran, we'll find the pirates," Bitra promised. "There's a thought I have about dragons, but I need better maps, and I need to know how long and how well they can fly."

"And you don't know?"

Bitra shook his head. "I'll find out somehow. Meanwhile - are you willing to come with me, or will you return to the islands?"

"In the wet season there's only tasks suitable for wet and windy conditions," Fortran said. "But if I come, I'll need somewhere secure to store my own goods."

"The jars are stoppered? Once we reach land, you can store them in pits like you usually do? Maybe there'll be places to haul the _balon_raft up onto land? Or at the very least, secure jetties?"

Fortran looked across at the canoes.

"I would think they haul those out of water, you can see the marks on the hulls where they rest on something. By deflating the _balons_ I can make the raft ride lower, as a protection against the storms. Come now, friend Bitra, we'll collect Wavehover and be following them, yes? Call them over!"

He did so, and the five canoes arrowed across and jostled around the raft. Fortran produced his maps, and pointed out where Wavehover was, and how they could rest there and take on water, and whatever food was there, and then cut down south easterly towards the fire islands making their own beacon in the sky, and so to the islands.

"Can your dragon fly that far?" Jad asked doubtfully.

"We'll find out, won't we?" Bitra replied. "I have a thought - a memory perhaps - of dragons flying for a long time, over oceans like these."

Jad frowned up at him. "I was born on this world, I don't know about those sorts of memories. My father might know, I suppose."

Dis was obviously itching to leave, and the canoes drew away and began to thread their way through the Homebase rafts, some of which were also preparing to depart.

Fortran and Bitra untied their raft from the Homebase, Bitra hauled the sail up and secured it, ran the ropes through the blocks greased with the fruit-scented oil, and Fortran lowered the rudder into the water.

As they set sail Bitra found himself straightening without realising he had been hunched and wary all the time they had been tied up at the Homebase and within sight and sound of the other folk. He looked to the front, watching the clouds bubble up on the western horizon, a storm building out there perhaps, and trimmed the sail more closely to the wind, north easterly to the island where Wavehover and the snout-hound waited their coming.

Bitra found he was impatient to see his dragon again, and sent out his mind calls to her, and Fortran pointed into the oceans, clearer now they were out of the oiled waters of the market.

"The grey swimmers are below us. They don't usually come this close to the markets or the Homebases."

"Maybe they like my singing," Bitra said with a smile, because he had devised a hollow tube and sometimes in the night he had whistled and hummed very softly into it when he had plunged it into the water. Fortran laughed, but he kept looking down into the water, and called Bitra over.

"Look there! A whole group of the grey swimmers! Oh, I hope they don't come too close!"

The great beasts streamed with them, keeping pace, and Bitra sighed as he tried in vain to push past the darkness in his mind, aware of a creeping headache starting in the back of his neck. He sat down and leaned to fetch a handful of cool water to ease it, and Fortran gave a startled screech as a grey shape loomed under the raft, rocked it, and Bitra, unbalanced, fell off the edge into the water.


	11. Chapter 11

11

Bitra swallowed a mouthful of salt water before he realised, and coughing and choking flailed around. His hand encountered something to grip and he hauled himself up to the air again, and found he was draped across the back of the one of the swimmers. Fortran was dancing up and down on the raft, and Bitra raised a hand in reassurance, hearing the snout-hounds yipping and yapping. Bitra shook his head and flung his hair back, looking around at the great creatures all around him. He felt no fear, only wonder, and laid his cheek on the rough skin, wondering if these were the creatures he heard singing.

To his astonishment, with the increase of his headache he "heard" not the singing, but a distinct voice.

_- are you safe, my own?_

_- Wavehover? No - not Wavehover - Taranath - is that you?_

_- it is! We speak again! I can hear you!_

_- and I you, but very faintly._

_- this will need practice. Are you far from me?_

Bitra raised his head and immediately lost the thread. Cursing, he laid his head down, but the link was gone. He gave a frustrated sob and clutched at the creature beneath him as he was drawn onwards towards the raft, and with a convulsive heave, threw himself onto the deck. He rolled over and then stuck his head below the surface and shouted "thank you" into the waters, and then, feeling sick and headachy, rolled over onto the deck, blinking salt water from his sight.

"Friend Bitra! I thought you were dead!"

Fortran hurried to fetch water and Bitra sat up, staring out at the group of swimmers.

"They - helped me speak to Taranath. That's Wavehover's real name. We spoke - in the mind - like we used to."

"And the grey ones helped you? They're the ones who sing? Yes, if you can speak to a dragon, why not to a grey one?"

"But I spoke to Taranath and understood her. I didn't understand the grey ones - their singing - was like you and Pirest talking and laughing together."

Fortran sat back and stared over the choppy waters and then pointed into the sky.

"She comes," he said simply, and Bitra stood up, grabbing the edge of the cabin as he peered into the blueness, and Taranath was backwinging beside the raft, making it rock, and Bitra shook his head in desperate frustration.

"I can't hear you, Taranath!" he shouted. "Not now - not without help from the grey ones - we'll be at the island soon - "

Taranath swooped and caught the anchor rope in her talons, her wings snapped open and she flew outwards and began towing the raft. Fortran shouted in fear and dropped to hands and knees, and Bitra grabbed at loose gear, thrusting it into the cabin.

"Hold on, friend Fortran! Hold on!"

The wild ride took them a fraction of the time it would have done under sail. Taranath let go as they approached the beach, the anchor splashed down and held, and the raft swung around to come to rest. Bitra plunged off the raft and swam the last few strokes to the beach and stumbled up onto the sand, flinging his arms around the neck of his dragon.

"We spoke," he sobbed. "We'll speak again - I know we will - "

The third snout-hound had been yipping at his feet, and Bitra crouched and rubbed his rough hair.

"Yes, I know, you kept her safe for me. Thank you."

He swam back out to the raft and hauled himself on board. One of the things they had traded for had been a small boat, just large enough for both of them, with oars, and Fortran had unlashed it and was readying it.

"We need water," he said. "Since we're here before nightfall we might as well make camp on the beach. The tide is on the in, so the raft will be safe."

"All right. Sorry - I didn't mean - it was dangerous to swim off like that."

"Yes, but no harm done. Take these containers, will you?"

"Fortran - "

Fortran looked up. "It's all right, friend Bitra, we will make sense of this together. I was so frightened, that's all."

Bitra grimaced. "So was I. All my past life flashed in front of me, I can tell you - " he broke off and stared at Fortran who stared back.

"In truth? In truth, you saw all your past life?"

Bitra nodded slowly. "I come from a sea hold, I was Searched at a young age to go to High Reaches Weyr, about as far from the sea as you can get, I lived there for six years before Impression, I've flown Taranath for - oh - ten or twelve Turns."

"Amazing! More than all your fellows know! And your name?"

"I am called R'card."

"Difficult to say. Ricard?"

"When you Impress a dragon, when they hatch, a rider shortens his name. But Ricard is fine by me."

He bent and picked up the empty skins and climbed down into the boat, readied the oars, and Fortran followed him with the snout-hounds. They had been howling and yipping to each other and once on shore they indulged in a playfight up and down the beach. Fortran went over to the dragon.

"I must call you Taranath, now," he said, scratching the eye ridges. "We will look further into this speaking of minds. We met some more dragon riders at the markets."

Taranath followed them to the wells of fresh water. Generations ago, someone had bored these holes in the rock, Fortran had said, to provide a stopping point for people travelling around the seas. Taranath had found one of the huge shallow carapaces of a swimming creature, and nudged it along towards them. Ricard took the hint, wedged it securely, and filled it twice for her to drink, and then filled it again for the snout-hounds. Birds gathered in the trees around them, he could hear their soft twitterings.

"I'll fill it again," he promised, as Fortran lowered the skins into the wells and hauled them up filled for Ricard to stopper.

"Who are you talking to?" Fortran asked, staring around the empty island.

"The birds," Ricard admitted with a smile.

"Do you intend to learn how to speak to every creature on this world?"

"It might not be a bad idea. If the grey swimmers have intelligence, and the snout-hounds as well, who knows what other species might?"

"Species?"

Ricard frowned as he refilled the shell.

"I don't know - that word just came into my mind. It means - everything that belongs together - all of a kind."

"Oh, our word is _keth-kon_. Yes, I understand you."

Fortran carefully put the lids back over the wells to prevent fouling, and they moved away, glancing back to see the birds fluttering down for water in the refilled carapace.

"If you didn't set the sail, but put down the rudder, and if the _balons_ didn't perish, would the currents carry you all around the world?" Ricard asked as he put the filled and stoppered skins on matting to pull down to the boat.

"Yes, so it's told. I don't know if the _balons_ would last that long."

"But if you built a boat? Larger than your skin boat, built of wood?"

Fortran straightened. "This is not something you should mention out loud, friend Ricard, because of course lots of people don't want the trees used for such purposes."

"The dragon riders used hollowed out logs as canoes."

"My people allow that, I suppose. Five canoes - that is not a lot of wood."

"I understand. I'll go and refill the tanks and come back."

They spent the day refilling the tanks on the raft, and Ricard found more of the new fruits, and cut some fresh from the trees as well, their outer casing smoothly green and soft. Fortran foraged inland and brought green leaves to wrap around the fish Taranath caught for them, and they cooked them on the shore, taking the precaution of hiding the fire in a depression.

"You've done this before - this sand is burned right through," Ricard said thoughtfully.

"It's an island on a lot of maps," Fortran replied, sniffing the wind and glancing into the trees. "There may be rain before the end of the night."

Ricard dug in the sand at the site of other older fires, and brought several pieces of burned and solidified sand to their fire, holding them up to show the firelight gleaming through them.

"Burning glass," Fortran said. "I've a small piece of that - useful for lighting a fire."

"And to make windows."

"Windows? Another of your words?"

"We built in wood and stone, and windows keep out the cold and the rain. How do you keep those out?"

Fortran shrugged. "I turn the boat over, of course, and burrow underneath."

"Hmm."

They slept on shore, but woke in the night as a spat of rain came over the island, and pulled dragon hide coverings over themselves to keep dry. The wind picked up and blew harder and at first light they packed their goods and loaded them.

"The wind will be too strong for Taranath?"

"She'll be fine. We know where we're headed?"

Fortran was struggling with the smaller sail and Ricard went to speak to Taranath and point out the shape of the next island. He laid his head against hers, trying to find a way to speak to her, but there was only that headache-making darkness, and he sighed and shook his head and left her to take off and wing her way into the sky.

"Come, friend Ricard, with this wind we'll very probably beat her to the island!"

"Right you are. Let me clew this line up and haul the anchor."


	12. Chapter 12

12

The raft was driven by strong winds all that day, both of them hanging onto the rudder to steer. Ricard hitched longer lines to allow them to control the sail from the rudder, but water slopped over the decking and into the cabin. The snout-hounds crouched in there, looking miserable, but Ricard had tied the clothing and bedding up into the boat thwarts to keep it dry, with a bundle of dry tinder as well.

They sighted the grey swimmers occasionally as they breached and blew spray and spume into the air, and sometimes the black shape of an eaty thing passed below the raft but did not pause.

"The _balons_ are still fresh enough to put them off," Fortran said as he brought water for them, the sun beginning to dip into the west behind them. "We should sight the islands soon. Two peaks, and a reef between them."

"Taranath has found them - look at her dipping and rising."

They had kept the dragon in sight all day as she had glided and flown ahead of them, seeing her dip occasionally to the ocean and then rise on a thermal current, and now they put up the extra sail, despite the raft dipping and bucking into the water. The dark shape on the horizon was an island, Ricard hoped, and not a rain storm cloud, but then he saw a flicker of lightning and after a while heard the rumble of thunder.

"I hope there's shelter on those islands?"

"There should be a sea cave, yes, although with wind and tides as they are, it will be wet."

"Wonderful."

Fortran laughed and shrugged, and they steered the raft towards the long beach and jetty.

"Are there jetties on every island on this world?"

"On most of the better known sea roads, yes of course there are. Use this matting - the stones can fret the bindings."

"Another use for those fruits, if I can work out how to make plaited coils," Ricard observed, as they tied up securely and Taranath minced up the beach towards them, the snout-hounds rushing over to greet her and then attending to their own business. The storm was nearer, another flash of lighting lit the cloud-filled sky, and Ricard looked around.

"Is that sea cave near?"

"Over there, but we'll need the small boat to reach it."

"I don't think we should bother, then. The wind's picking up as well."

They made sure the raft was secure and took the tents and bedding into the tree line. As Fortran observed, they could stay and be soaked by the sea, or they could be soaked by fresh rain water. They found a space to put up the tents and tie them securely, sweeping the sand free of fallen debris, and made a fire to heat some food as the storm gathered force and then broke over the islands. Taranath was a humped shape on the beach, head tucked down, and the three snout-hounds took shelter under her wings.

"Is this usual?" Ricard asked.

"Yes. If I had had time, I would have gone around the other side of the island, but that would mean leaving the raft unwatched."

"I wouldn't fancy doing that. How far is it to dragon riders' islands?"

"From here? With the wind behind us in this season, two days to the next group of sea mounts where Taranath can rest, then another three days to the fire islands. From there, perhaps two days down the chain of islands. How far can Taranath fly in a day?"

Ricard stared at the rain drops gathering and dripping from the edge of the tent.

"I don't know," he admitted. "She flew today's trip without any trouble, and there's something in my mind about dragons flying - if they think they can do it, they will."

Fortran sighed.

"So much knowledge lost, friend Ricard."

"Yes, I know. If I can manage to get past this barrier in my mind, and if the headache would go away, I might do better."

"Be careful of that," Fortran said warningly. "Don't fret at it, you might do damage to yourself."

Ricard shook his head. "It's there all the time now, like a constant pressure in my mind, but I need - something - meditation - herbs - something - to free it."

"Herbs? I wonder now - I wonder if _bezel_ could help? I used it on your wounds, and you can drink it and become dead drunk. I wonder if it could free your mind?"

Ricard rolled over and stared at him, thinking of the times he had been drunk in the past, of glasses of good Benden wine, of staggering home to his weyr sobbing out maudlin confidences to his weyr mate.

"Arathia," he said slowly. "Her name was Arathia, the girl from the lower caverns I lived with for - a long time - she had long black hair and dark eyes."

"This was a female of your species? She will think you dead?"

"Oh yes. I am dead, gone _between_, to all those who knew me."

"Could you return?"

"A dragon needs to take the image from the rider's mind, to go there. I can't communicate with Taranath well enough to give her an image. And even if I could - there's no guarantee it would work."

He sat up, hunched over his bent knees, staring out over the rain sodden land, and shook his head.

"That would be a step so far in the future I don't want to think about it. But I'd be willing to try the _bezel_."


	13. Chapter 13

13

Despite Fortran's cheerful assurances the storms would pass over, the two voyagers were wet, cold, hungry and uncomfortable when they eventually sighted the fire islands. A glow on the horizon to match the sunset behind them, and the stench of sulphur on the wind, was their first indication, and then they were sailing close to the cliffs of the islands.

Ricard peered up at the frozen lava flows.

"That must have been spectacular when it was freshly pouring! Look at all the birds nesting on the ledges. Has this been here long?"

"All the time since my people have been here, I think," Fortran replied, trimming the sail and glancing down into the water. "No reefs, you notice? They don't grow here, because the rock rises sheer from the water."

"And no sand?"

"I'm told the sand is black."

Ricard looked again at the lava.

"That makes sense. We've been seen - look up there."

He pointed, and a dragon was circling, coming towards them. It appeared not to have a rider, and Taranath, who had been dipping over the waves, rose to meet it. They performed an aerial ballet then Taranath was winging back down.

"Grey swimmers," Fortran said, and Ricard nodded as he watched them breach.

"Have they been following us, or been alerted, I wonder?"

"I wouldn't advise going into the water to find out just now! The currents are strong around these islands, and further across they force themselves through narrows where no boat can go."

They circled the fire islands, avoiding the newer ones still belching smoke and flame and fresh lava, and made for the more northerly islands where the land had been colonised by life. Coming in close to one, they saw a line of trees growing down a gully fed by water that tumbled off into space and down to the sea. A long beach of black sand curved away to a headland and two canoes came shooting out from the headland towards them, the paddlers moving in rhythm, their paddles making flashing shapes in the water. They came up close, and Jad Green waved.

"You made it then! Did you have any trouble?"

"Nothing that being dry and warm and well fed won't cure!" Ricard answered, and Jad grinned and waved again, the canoes turned and led the way as Ricard trimmed the sails and Fortran leaned on the tiller to move them around the headland.

They came to rest against a natural stone jetty, cast their matting fenders over and busied themselves lowering the sail and binding it to the raft. Ricard looked frequently at the shore but there was no sign of houses or any kind of farming.

"Strange they don't live around the beach," he said.

"Maybe it's too exposed. Dragons up there! I've never seen so many!"

They were perched on the high cliff, and Taranath circled, they could hear the bugling calls, and Taranath landed.

"There must be a wide ledge up there," Ricard speculated.

Just when he was wondering if the island was totally uninhabited, Jad Green emerged from a cave mouth, carrying a torch of burning fibre which he put into a holder as he came along the jetty. He helped them tie up securely and gather their bundles.

"You still have your trade goods? We'll store them in the caves, I think."

"Are you the leader, then?" Fortran asked.

"No, but I'm a Green, so that makes us clan members together. Are these your snout-hounds? We have those, but they're a different colour - longer in the body as well, I think."

Two other men came, and Ricard realised they wore a length of green cloth sewn to their clothing. It took only a short time to unload the raft, and move the goods into the caves which were natural lava tubes formed when the islands were young. The canoes were here as well, on trestles, and paddles and sails as well. Jad marked the goods as Fortran's and then they were walking up the lava tube, Fortran's clawed feet clicking on the rock. In a few paces they emerged onto the lip of the tube, looking into a flat bowl shaped valley about the size of Fortran's main island, Ricard estimated. It was full of life. Trees and bushes clung to the walls, the valley floor was shaped into fields and orchards, and people obviously lived in caves pocking the walls. Smoke rose from cooking fires and they could see people moved about.

"This is - quite wonderful!" Fortran exclaimed. "I wonder if there are other islands like this?"

Jad shook his head. "You wouldn't know unless you could overfly on a dragon. There're three more valleys like this one on the island - we've bored tunnels between them. We think these were once volcanic - the heart blew out and left these hollows, and soil and windblown debris filled the bottom and made it liveable."

"Like Benden and the other great Holds and Weyrs," Ricard said. "They were formed from extinct volcanoes."

Jad stared at him. "How d'you know that? It's written down, but we don't understand it."

"I'll speak to your leader, so long as he isn't Dis of the Brown clan."

"No, he isn't. Dis would like to be leader, but he's Brown clan, and only Bronze can be leaders."

Ricard slanted a glance as they walked. Over the generations, riders had come through with bits and pieces of knowledge, he guessed, and those, written down or passed on verbally, had caused a distortion of the society he had known. Would anyone else be willing to try speaking through the grey swimmers? Were there any fresh arrivals like himself?

They reached the centre of the houses and people were moving around on tasks, children as well, as Jad led them to the biggest house. He stepped inside and gestured them in.

"Bronze Leader, this is Bitra Green - "

"My name is Ricard Seaholder's son, rider of green Taranath, from High Reaches Weyr," Ricard said as he stepped forward. The men seated on benches stared at him, and a mutter went around.

"Why do you name yourself ? It is for me to tell you which clan you will belong to!"

The man who stood up was tall, but he was older than Ricard had expected. He wore a strip of bronze painted reed on his clothing which was a mixture of materials.

"That is my name and designation on our Homeworld of Pern."

"Pern! How do you know it's called Pern?"

"Let me explain, if you will listen?"

The leader stared at him for an intense moment, then gestured him forward.

"Who's your companion?"

"This is Fortran the Seeker. I fell to one of his harvest islands, and he cared for me and Taranath my dragon."

They came forward and Jad brought them water to drink, and some flat unrisen bread smeared with some sort of piquant sauce.

Ricard explained his fall into the water, the experience of reliving part of his life, and how with the aid of the grey swimmers he had communicated with his dragon.

"The grey swimmers! They come around the islands frequently, we dare not go out when pods of them swim close! Yet - you say you can speak through them?"

Ricard nodded.

"I think I'm close to breaking through the barriers between Taranath and myself. Friend Fortran thinks _bezel_, a juice he distils, might help."

"_Bezel_ is forbidden on the islands," the leader said angrily. "It turns men mad! They speak in nonsense fashion!"

"Or perhaps they speak to their dragons? Are there many linked pairings here at present?"

The leader leaned back in his chair, studying Ricard.

"I don't know what to make of you," he said abruptly. "You dress and act as if you're one of us, but you didn't come back from the markets with the traders. You claim to have spoken to your dragon, and you're not willing for her to breed with ours - "

Ricard stood up, glaring at him.

"Just a minute there! I don't like being crowded into decisions! I'll decide whether I come and live here, and Taranath is perfectly capable of deciding is she's on heat and ready to mate! Greens rise more often than golds, but on Pern they hardly ever produce a clutch of eggs because they're fighting dragons, and chew firestone! Here in this world they probably are fertile, but they have intelligence and sentience! You don't treat them like herdbeasts, do you?"

The men in the house looked at each other, and the bronze leader frowned.

"You speak of things we have written down, pieced together over the years from those riders who came through alive, who had maps and bits and pieces of equipment and writing on them. Otherwise we would never know our origins."

"Are you willing to try and speak to your dragon again?" another man asked. "I came through five or ten years ago, I can't recall when, but I would like to speak to my bronze. Sometimes I think I'm almost there - then I fall ill with a blinding headache and can't see anything but darkness."

"Yes, I get that headache and the sense of darkness."

The bronze rider stood up.

"I call myself Scar, from this - " he touched the line of headed thread across his face. "I'll take them to my place, leader."

He shrugged and nodded, and they left the house, Jad following behind, a silent spectator, but obviously deep in thought.

"Can anyone speak to any dragon?" he asked.

"Only if the dragon wants to speak," Ricard answered. "I know Taranath spoke to other dragons and the Weyr leaders if necessary, when we were fighting."

They came to Scar's small reed and wood hut and Fortran stared in amazement and ran his hand over the wooden uprights and sills, shaking his head at the amount of wood.

"Your matting would look good here," Jad said with a smile. "Gar could have sold it many times over!"

"Was that your making, that close weave and the pattern?" Scar asked. "I never could get my hands around the weaving, although I take my part in other things. Come in, Jad."

"Thanks."

The younger man came in with them and Scar gestured to the flying suit hanging on the wall, mended in places where thread must have struck.

"As you can see, I was lucky."

"So was I, with only one long wound down my leg. But - your dragon?"

Scar shook his head. "Will not fly again, I fear. The wing was eaten nearly through, and although it's grown again, he's reluctant to try."

Ricard nodded. "Not unknown, back home, for a dragon to retire from the fighting wings when badly injured. Their riders usually go to help teach in the weyrling barracks."

Scar looked thoughtful. "This is more knowledge than we have ever had."

"I told you, I fell into the ocean, and the shock of it, and contact with the grey swimmers, gave me some of my mind back. Not all! Do not think I can recall everything, I still have gaps in my knowledge."

"We'll write it down," Jad promised. "That way, we'll all be able to learn. For now - _bezel_ might be forbidden, but it's not unknown for a little to be found, now and again, in peoples' houses."

Scar laughed. "Yes, I have some! I need it, when I get those sick headaches. Let's eat a proper meal, first, and then we'll try it out, you and me, green rider!"


	14. Chapter 14

14

Scar and Ricard went up the weyrs before they took the _bezel_. Jad and Fortran accompanied them, and the snout-hounds bustled along behind, pausing to sniff at the rocks and bushes as they passed.

They paused at the dragon heights to look over the ocean.

"You can see the fire islands," Fortran said, circling to look and pointing them out. "Beyond them - are those islands you live on as well? I can see dragons circling?"

Scar glanced at him. "You must have good eyesight! Yes, some of the dragons took off there on their own, so it's said. I suppose - I suppose they can still talk to each other?"

"Can they, without the aid of Impression?" Ricard asked. "I've only ever known dragons that were paired, it's beyond my experience to think of dragons alone."

"Fire lizards are alone, and they can communicate," Scar said, and then looked astonished. "Where - where did that piece of lore come from? It just - came into my head!"

"You're a bronze rider," Ricard said. "The strongest bond, so it's said, apart from a gold and her queen rider."

"There're tales of golds coming through. But not many."

"Golds don't fight in the same way as the other dragons," Ricard agreed. "But they age, and they have accidents. But as a bronze rider, your bond will be strong, and you came through relatively recently."

They found Taranath coiled up on a ledge, with a bronze standing guard over her.

"That's my bronze, I call him Rocky," Scar said ruefully. "Looks like he's laid claim already, doesn't it?"

Ricard looked at the two dragons, and then around at the valley and the people moving about, getting ready for the night time.

"How many women are there here?"

"Some few. Why?"

"If Taranath rises, I have no intention of mating with you," Ricard replied acidly. "I've always made sure there were willing girls around, before."

"Is she going to rise?"

Ricard studied his dragon, and then shook his head. "Not yet," he decided. "She's acting coy, though."

They entered the bowl of the weyr and found Scar's dragon had made a comfortable nest for Taranath who raised a wing, and the three snout-hounds rushed forward to rub themselves against her and yip and yaffle in their own language.

"Snout-hounds like dragons," Fortran said as he unslung the blankets he had been carrying, Jad lowered the jugs of _bezel_ and water, and they made themselves comfortable on the deep layers of bedding.

"Have you ever ridden on a dragon?" Jad asked Fortran.

"No! None of my people have, to my knowledge. We rarely see any living as you do, mostly they are sick or injured or - or - dead - "

Jad nodded. "I know you make use of them. I understand why, with so few islands."

"Have you ever been all around this world?" Ricard asked. "You have the wooden canoes, you'd be able to do it where a _balon_raft would be risking death."

"Those canoes couldn't go that far!"

"They might if they were tied together, with enough fresh water and food, and sails."

"Sails? We don't use sails, only paddles."

Ricard shook his head as he looked up at Taranath who had dipped her head for him to scratch her eye ridges.

"So much of this world is unknown. Why - on the other side of it - there might be whole continents of dry land ready for colonisation. There might be - I don't know - but that's where I'm headed."

"Our leader will want you to stay," Scar said as he set out the wooden tumblers and began mixing the water with the strong distilled spirit liquor.

"I'll go and do my exploring first," Ricard replied at once, with a smile to take the edge off his words, and Jad stared at both of them with a worried frown.

"We don't show ourselves much to Fortran's people, only at market time," he put in. "We don't want them to - to worry about us - or - or attack us, I suppose? Fortran?"

"My people gave you these islands," Fortran said. "I know the terms of the treaties, I have read them, and you have these islands to make as your own, with whatever is on them, and I truly don't know if my people knew of these hidden valleys! But there are so few of your people, and not that many more of my own - room enough on a whole world for us to co-exist - and to live with these other creatures."

He was stroking the hide of his favourite snout-hound, running his claws lightly through to untangle the hair, the hound lying with his mobile snout on Fortran's misshapen leg, his eyes closed. Taranath closed her lids and laid her head close to Ricard as he picked up a tumbler and sniffed cautiously, his eyes beginning to water. He reached for the water jug and diluted the juice again before sipping.

"Not very pleasant," he said, and reached for his own water flask, tipping some of the sweet fruit juice into the tumbler and sipping again.

"That's better! Wow, that's some kick!"

Scar tried the fruit juice and Ricard realised very few of the trees grew on these islands. They needed long sandy beaches for their waterproofed fruit cases to land and take root, he thought, as he took another mouthful and allowed the fumes to warm in his mouth and rise into his nose.

"Here," Fortran murmured, handing him a length of cloth. "The _bezel_ always makes the nose run, even in my people."

"You aren't drinking?" Scar asked.

"I will watch you. I know the effects, you see."

Scar nodded as he took another drink, lay down and laid his head on Rocky's clawed front feet, looking up at his dragon.

"So much we have lost, so much unknown," he murmured, and Ricard followed his example and laid his head against Taranath, closing his eyes.

_- do you really need that stuff, my own?_

_- it helps, my dearest dragon. I can see beyond the blackness more clearly. _

_- and I can see your pictures again. This is wonderful, to speak to you again. Don't fret over me mating with any of these dragons, my own._

_- tell me if any of them attract you?_

_- this one, Genith, the bronze. He speaks to his rider now. F'ron is very happy again._

Ricard blinked up at the darkening sky, realising he could hear the other pair, and then on the thought, other voices were chiming in, eager, wistful, afraid, angry, and he sat up abruptly and stared blearily around.

"Don't be afraid, friend Ricard," Fortran said in a soft voice. "I think they speak to you? The hounds are picking it up also."

Ricard lay down again and closed his eyes, and let his senses fly free, and gradually began to pick his way through his own memories again, and those of F'ron. He began speaking in a whisper, and could hear the rasp of a pen, and knew the others were writing down what he was picking up, so that it would not be lost again.


	15. Chapter 15

15

He woke, and wished he hadn't. He groaned, flailed, rose to an elbow and someone laid a warm wet cloth over his forehead and held out a bowl. He was retchingly sick and lay back with a groan.

"Oh - my head - Benden wine was never that strong before!"

_- this was not Benden, my own._

_- Taranath?_

_- you have slept? We can fly?_

_- spare me, dear heart! At least let my head stop pounding!_

"Are you awake, friend Ricard?"

Ricard opened his eyes and squinted. He was still in the weyr, under the shelter of Taranath's outstretched wing, and Fortran was laying damp cloths on his forehead.

"Remind me - never to drink that much again - "

"I gave you two full tumblers - a dangerous amount - but I judged you needed that, and your friend Firon as well, to get over the blackness."

"Firon - he spoke to Genith?"

"Yes, so he says. He is lying over there, as ill as you are."

Ricard raised himself cautiously and blinked around the weyr. Every dragon on the heights seemed to be crowded around them, and Genith was bugling to them, his wings outstretched, one wing slightly crooked from the thread scoring.

"Firon?"

"Ricard? Oh - my head - that was - I was never that drunk since my youth when I stole my father's cider pressings!"

Ricard laughed unsteadily. "Benden wine was always my weakness."

"Benden wine! Ah, the taste of that at gathers!"

Ricard accepted a fruit drink from Fortran, letting it slide over his throat, rasped by the vomit. He looked up at Taranath whose eyes were whirling with pleasure.

_- let me get some food inside, and we'll fly._

_- yes, you must eat. Genith gave me red meat to eat, I don't need any more for a while. He says there are islands of wild animals, the other flying dragons have spotted them._

_- I'd like to map all these islands._

_- I see your intent in my mind, and I can speak to the others now. _

_- is there no blackness?_

_- a little, yes of course, but mostly, my own, I can see you again in our minds._

Ricard lay down again and allowed Fortran to minister to him and Forin, Jad stroking the hide of a green beast, smiling fondly.

"He bonded, he says," Fortran observed. "Is that where you are able to speak to the dragon?"

"Yes. Amazing. _Bezel_ did the trick for us, and for Jad. I don't know if it would work for others?"

"I think they come to find out," Fortran said, looking over the side of the weyr, and Ricard raised himself in time to see several riders climbing the natural ledges to the dragon heights. He recognised Gar, and the rider came over to him.

"What happened last night? I dreamed - I dreamed I was flying - my dragon was spouting fire from his mouth, burning something - then something happened - the wind changed - something blew back at us - Dilith screamed in pain - and I woke here."

"You were fighting thread on Pern, and were thread scored," Ricard said. "Can you remember which was your Weyr?"

Gar frowned. "No. But it was cold! I do remember that, we needed fires all year round, although the rock was warmed from the centre of the earth."

"One of the far north Weyrs, then. Which is Dilith?"

In response, a green dragon raised on its haunches and warbled, and Gar pointed.

"Dilith," he said, with a fond smile, and an unfocused look in his eyes. "I can speak to her - a little - enough to know her and her wishes."

Several other riders had made their way to dragons, were embracing and hugging them, and Fortran put his cloths away.

"This is very wonderful, friend Ricard," he said. "No one made the breakthrough before, even with _bezel_ juice?"

"I think - it was because I'm the catalyst - I communicated with the grey swimmers, and they opened my mind enough for me to find Taranath over the blackness of the void."

"And - can you get home?"

Ricard stared at him, and the others turned to look as well.

"Go - home?" Jad asked. "But this - this world - is my home - I was born here in the valleys."

"I came from Fort," Firon said slowly. "They will have mourned me and moved on. My weyr mate will have found someone else, perhaps."

Fortran looked around at all of them.

"You have a means of going back to that world," he said. "If you can make the pictures, the dragons can take you there, back across the void."

Ricard looked up at Taranath.

_- would you venture that far, my dearest?_

_- no, because we would die in the attempt. Your pictures are not clear - I can see some things, but not others._

_- the star stones at High Reaches Weyr. Can you see the star stones with the Red Star framed?_

Every single dragon rose on its hind legs, extended and flapped its wings, and gave out a bugling roar, looking instinctively to the east. Several took off, circled, and then landed again as their riders cowered away from the fierce draughts of wind.

_- I cannot see them. It is overlaid with other images like the things you see through raindrops. No, I could not go there. I could go to our friend Fortran's islands, to those warm golden sands._

Ricard took the picture from Taranath's mind, as clear as if they stood on the beach. He turned to Fortran.

"I think those links are too damaged to try. I think the abrupt severance of ourselves between damaged our vision of the past, except for small fractured pictures."

"I feel that too," Firon said reluctantly. "I can't fix a proper image, even of my childhood, not without it being overlaid by other images."

He turned to question the others, and Ricard spoke again to Fortran.

"The images of this world are much clearer. Taranath can go back to your harvest islands. A dragon takes an image from the rider and goes _between_ to get there. I think we might try to go there."

Fortran ran the damp cloth nervously through his hands, staring around at the dragons.

"They could transport anyone anywhere? Once they have been there, they can go again?"

"Yes, that's the way it operates, going _between_."

"I would worry that in crossing that small void, you might fall into the greater one, and be lost," Fortran said. "Friend Ricard - I would be sorry to lose you."

Ricard put a hand over the clutched cloth, another on the snout-hound who was huffling at their knees, and heard again those long sighing songs of the grey swimmers overlying the thoughts of food and shelter from the hounds.

"I think I'm unusually sensitive to thoughts," Ricard said. "I think I always was, which is why I was Searched, of course. I can't hear every dragon, but I used to hear some of the others at times, which is unusual for a male rider. I think - I must make that venture, try to get to the islands, friend Fortran."

Fortran studied him, and looked up at Taranath.

"If - you flew from island to island, and put markers on each - and mapped the markers - you could tell each dragon - and every dragon could fly everywhere?"

Ricard looked around at the island. He saw fierce stark rocks, a liveable valley, people coming and going, penned in by the living ocean pouring its currents around the world.

"Yes," he said at last. "Yes, anyone could come and go. You - friend Fortran - your goods could get from your islands to the market place in an instant of time."

"And - what of my people?"

"They will learn to ride dragons," Ricard said with a smile. "In the future, friend Fortran, all of us will ride dragons, and the waters of this world will not be a barrier between islands. Will you venture? Friend Fortran the Seeker, who found and nurtured us when you could have killed me and my dragon in our weakness, friend Fortran, will you ride on our dragon to our islands?"

Fortran stood up, staring straight into Taranath's whirling eyes.

"Yes!" he shouted. "Yes, I will be one of the new peoples of this world!"


End file.
